Final thoughts

It's June and we are doing the wrap-up for the course. I can't believe how fast the time has flown; I can't believe how many topics we've covered in these 10 weeks! Wow! I have learned so much about using technology in teaching... and now I need to sit back, debrief, and make sure that my plans for implementing changes in the classroom are organized and well-formulated so that they actually come to fruition. According to my self-evaluation, most of my instruction is at Level 1 Awareness on the LoTI framework for integrating technology in my classroom, so to move myself towards Exploration, Infusion, Integration... will be a process that needs to be undertaken with care.

I think the best thing that I could do to continue this process of IT integration would be to speak enthusiastically about it to my colleagues at the university so that eventually they would join me in making technology work for them as well. I have already spoken to one teacher who was ready and excited to make changes, and will begin exploring some of the topics and sites over the summer after exams are finished. So that's good. Obviously, if courses are still taught so that students can pass the exams, and if the majority of teachers still hold to traditional instructional styles and assessment methods, then it will be more difficult for me to implement technology change for just my small group of students. It would be important for change to occur system-wide, and we CAN do that -- one step at a time, one teacher at a time. So as others see success in my classroom and with new strategies using digital tools and resources, they hopefully will join the bandwagon. This is the theory anyway. And hope springs eternal....

It will be very strange not to be logging on to Nicenet everyday and reading my classmates' comments and going to their blog sites. An emptiness will rule my cyberworld for a while. Like, what did I ever DO with my time when I wasn't on-line reading and reading? I will still go to my classmates' blogs, just to see if anyone has any interesting new ideas or comments - because this is from where some of the most helpful interaction of the course has come. And this is why I want to integrate blogging into my classes. I hope that my students will create the same kind of community that I have found here online from the Spring 2010 folks of "Building Teaching Skills through the Interactive Web."

Thanks to all of you :)

Au revoir et a bientot !
Ellen